The Lez Bomb Has Been Dropped

This new holiday feature film is about coming home and coming out.

By Lisa Tedesco

Published: 2018.11.21 10:53 AM

Image: Supplied

Move on over Hallmark and Lifetime channels! There’s a new holiday movie that is a must-see for the season. The “Lez Bomb” has dropped and it’s exploding into our living rooms and on our computers just in time for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving with the family: A yearly tradition where loved ones gather and bask in one another’s company while dining on an obscene amount of food only to pass out from too much wine and tryptophan. It’s a time to be calm and thankful, right? Right?!?

We all know that the holidays can be a stressful time of the year and we each have a unique story to tell about our families. Lez Bomb is certainly one of those stories.

This quirky, dysfunctional, family comedy stars writer/director Jenna Laurenzo as the closeted lesbian Lauren who is about to take the leap of faith and come out to her entire family during the Thanksgiving holiday. What could possibly go wrong?

Lauren is determined to rip off the Band-Aid with her girlfriend, Hailey (Caitlin Mehner) by her side at her childhood New Jersey home, only to have her plans thwarted when her roommate, Austin, unexpectedly shows up at the family’s doorstep on Thanksgiving morning. Needless to say Lauren’s grandchild-wanting mother answers the door and assumes Austin is the “special person” Lauren has been seeing. To make matters worse, the whole family quickly learns, and believes, that Lauren and Austin are an item and Hailey is just there to be the “supportive best friend”. Needless to say, comedy ensues.

Combined with a huge cast of big-namers (Cloris Leachman, Kevin Pollak, Steve Guttenberg and Bruce Dern), comedy galore, and a whole bunch of wine, Lez Bomb introduces a holiday film that encompasses a completely relatable family dynamic with all the issues that are wrapped up in the package deal. The film covers topics like the obvious coming out to death, to cancer and religion, to idiot siblings that we wish we could slap at times and just trying to be comfortable in your own skin.

With the abundance of characters it could have easily taken a confusing turn to the main conflict of Lauren’s anxiety. Each family member has their own identity and with it their own certain back story that surfaces as each one arrives at the New Jersey home for the holiday. They are very outspoken and tend to say whatever they have on their minds to one another which contrast Lauren’s own reservations and how she speaks to everyone. Her fear of being judged or rejected and not living up to any expectations her parents had for her is the center of her inner turmoil; which, in this day in age, we’d hope isn’t the case.

Lez Bomb has a perfect blend of incredible comedic performances from each character mixed with the right amount of seriousness that creates an all-encompassing relatable, situation. The film had me clenching my stomach for some serious laugh out loud, and possible snorting, moments and even had me saying “awwww” at the cute and tender moments between Lauren and Hailey.

I haven’t been able to pin-point such a relatable holiday film since Holly Hunter’s Home for the Holidays that came out in 1995 when I was only 10 years old. It’s a comfort to know that Laurenzo has given us the gift of representation in this new, soon to be, Thanksgiving classic.